Author: Robert Pawlak
Date: 08:00:04 11/28/99
Go up one level in this thread
On November 28, 1999 at 10:08:53, Albert Silver wrote: >On November 27, 1999 at 18:32:40, Charles Unruh wrote: > >>On November 27, 1999 at 10:15:06, Robert Pawlak wrote: >> >>>I suspect some people in the group may have missed it, but the current SSDF >>>champion is going to be an analysis engine for Chess Assistant! Convekta/CA has >>>been super secrective up to this point, but it looks like they have really >>>dropped a bombshell. >>> >>>This is incredible, because people have long wanted a few more choices for >>>internal analysis than Zarkov and Crafty. So CA reaches into their hat and pulls >>>out a Tiger! >>> >>>Bob P. >> >> >>NO!!!!!! Why not just make it a chessbase, that's what i have, and most others >>as well, why not sell to the largest pool of potential buyers. Well i guess, >>they were the only ones to offer the bucks. Truth of the matter is i just hate >>having to jump to different progs to get analysis. I love being able to jump >>from f5 to j5 to h7(would say Nimzo but who uses that:)), it's so easy. Guess >>i'll just have to keep using the dos version of tiger :( > >I can understand your point of view, but I can't subscribe to it. I bought CA3 >when it came out, and was very impressed by it. I told a friend of mine who used >CB6 about how fast it was, and he claimed it was due to my superior hardware. >So, one weekend, he came over and we installed CB6 in order to test it. The >results in search speed when comparing the two were just unbelievable. Imagine >the famous tale of the turtle and the rabbit, and you will get a very accurate >picture. Searches in CA3 at their most complicated took 1:30 whereas the same >search on CB6 (even with the search booster) would take forever. You cannot >shrug this off. Remember that this is the primary function of a database: >organize data, and be able to find what you want. If I told you program x takes >5 minutes to find the solution but program y takes 1, which will you buy? I now >own both CB7 and CA4 and the difference is still enormous: most times a >difference in minutes not seconds. Transferring games from one database or even >subset to another was another clear CA victory. The handy sidebar a la File >Manager/Windows Explorer wiht all of the darg and drop flexibility you could >want, and the speed (again) of transferring files was huge. Of course, there is >more to it than that, which is why I bought CB7 in the first place. Yes, once you use CA, you get used to the speed. The tree is also much smaller - the entire tree for their 1 million + game DB fits easily on a CD. This means you don't have to keep switching amoung multiple trees when working. These two features are the main selling points for me. >4 elements >that really tilted the balance in CB's favor: > >1) Better board. If you are going to spend hours and hours in front of a board, >then it has to be pleasant looking. Frankly, I didn't think (still don't) much >of it, meaning that given a choice between studying the same position in CA or >CB, I'll choose CB. > This is certainly a matter of personal preference. I think they were trying to maintain the same look and piece design as the old DOS CA. >2) Engines. This also killed CA. The equivalent of trying to run in a race while >limping. CA only had Dragon (if you never heard of it, you haven't missed >anything) and Zarkov. Zarkov was solid enough but still wasn't up to the Fritz >or Hiarcs that CB was offering. True, CA allowed one to call up external >programs such as Rebel, Mchess, or others, but the time of loading and exiting >the program was terrible. > I'd have to agree here. Dragon was ok for blunder checking, but was not in the same league as Hiarcs or Fritz. I use Rebel for analysis, and the load time is not long at all. But you need to set up the proper hash table size, because the default can cause the problem in load time that you've mentioned. >3) Better database. The core base wasn't much better (in fact Big99 or Mega99 >users might want to check out the dozens of erroneously players rated over 2700 >and 2800 - poor Gary), and CA did a very good job, but CB's tens of thousands of >GM commented games meant that either CA do likewise or allow one to access .cbh >files in it. In CA4 they opted for the latter. A wise decision IMO, but buggy to >say the least, and as a consequence pretty much unusable. Even plain unannotated >games would come out with problems. And fatal errors would appear if I tried to >simply convert a large .cbh database into CA's native format. > Yes, there are some bugs in the cbh translation, but I think it was largely an 'undocumented feature' - I mean I'm not sure any claims were made about it. The cbf translation was pretty good though. This is mostly what I use. >4) Multimedia. Here CB really innovated and by allowing the program to handle >.html files were able to imbed photos and even videos into textual presentation, >allowing them to produce one of the wonders of the chess world: Chessbase >Magazine. I was skeptical at first as to the advantage this offered, but after >having seen Kasparov throw up his hands in despair after losing material to >Anand, and then Anand's enthusiatic retelling of this, suddenly these players >became more than stills in a magazine and names on a rating list. It was >awesome. I also bought CB's superb Alekhine CD, somewhat nervous at seeing >everything in German as the blurb stated, but was relieved to see that the >extensive videos of Shirov, Gelfand, and King commenting on Alekhine were all in >English. The many old pictures of Alekhine and his opponents in tournaments of >yesteryear were also a great pleasure. Here, CA had nothing to offer but to be >honest, if this had been the only issue, I could easily have done without >(though not my subscription to CBM). > Yes, there is no contest here. Although I find the multimedia stuff to be a bit of a curiosity. CBM is really nice, and eye-popping too. I think the main thing that I like about the CB training is that you have the timed questions, which is something that CA could add, I think. >After listing my complaints, I was pleasantly caught off-guard by Zakharov, who >is pretty much the Godfather of CA for Windows, telling me that: > >1) they had instituted some changes into the board. >2) casually mentioned Chess Tiger would be an internal engine (my jaw fell open >at this as I had pretty much given up hope that CA would ever successfully >address this). >3) better .cbh support. > >As for 4) I expect at least photos to appear within the program if their new Tal >CD is any indication. > >Frankly, I can hardly wait. > > Albert Silver Yes, I am very excited also. For me and others, the engine was a major point o be addressed. I got by with using Rebel (which has an awesome playing style), but since I've switched to NT, I have to boot up my old Win98 partition when I want to use it. Bob P.
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